The reservation high school was a modern redbrick structure with well-kept lawns and nothing about to suggest the students were Northern Arapaho or Eastern Shoshone. The only student Joe saw outside was wearing a gray hoodie, smoking a cigarette, and listening to his iPod.
After checking the teachers' lot for Alisha Whiteplume's car (the SUV he'd seen through the binoculars), Joe parked and went in. THE MAIN HALLWAY of the school was dark and empty. His boots echoed on the linoleum. Classes were in session, and he glanced through windows in the closed doors to see teachers teaching, students sprawled at their desks, a few catching his eye as he passed. The teachers' names were printed on construction paper outside each door, and he paused at the one reading MISS WHITEPLUME. Inside was obviously a substitute teacher-a man in his midtwenties with shoulder-length hair and round wire-rimmed glasses. He was explaining something to the students but their glassy-eyed response unveiled his ineffectiveness.
Student artwork decorated the walls, pen-and-ink the medium. Joe was struck by how similar the work was to what he saw in the hallways of Saddlestring High School in town; how little distinctively Indian was included in subject and theme. In fact, he thought, he'd seen more warriors and mystical American Indian scenes in town than he saw on the reservation. Plenty of typical teenage dark-minded fantasy stuff, though, as well as NBA, hip-hop, and NASCAR-THEMED scenarios. Farther down the hall, closer to the office, were framed photos of graduating classes dating back more than forty-five years, many of which had once been displayed in the old high school before this new one was built. The graduate displays slowed him, and his eyes looted through the cameo photos.
The faces that looked back at him from year to year reflected the styles and attitudes of the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, to the present. The number of graduates grew and receded from year to year, and he couldn't tell if there were many more students at present than there had been forty years ago. There were sullen faces, hopeful faces, fierce faces, doomed faces. Because of the high mortality rate on the reservation, he recognized some of the recent names as accident victims, overdose victims, shooting victims. Too many from the recent classes were already gone, he thought. THE RECEPTIONIST looked up from behind the counter when he entered the school office. She was oval-faced and kindly-looking, a Native whose eyes showed she'd seen a lot over the years in that school. The name plaque on her desk read MRS. THUNDER. He liked that name and wished his name was "Joe Thunder."
Because he was wearing his uniform, Mrs. Thunder said, "Okay, who did what?"
"Nobody I'm aware of," he said.
"None of my boys shot a deer out of season or without a license?"
"Not this time," he said, placing her because of the way she said "my boys" as the heart and soul of the school, the Woman Who Knew Everybody And Everything. He always felt blessed when he met up with such women because they were generally the key to unlocking the secret doors to an institution.
"Ah," she said, "that's good to hear."
"I was going to ask to see the principal if he's in, but you can probably help me."
Mrs. Thunder shook her head, an impish grin on her lips. "I could, but it's not protocol. You should see the principal and he's a she. And she's in. I'll see if she has a minute. May I ask what you need from her?"
Joe said, "I want to ask about a teacher here, Alisha Whiteplume."
Mrs. Thunder's eyes flashed and Joe couldn't interpret the reaction.
"I'll be back," Mrs. Thunder said.
Joe wondered what he'd just done.
In a few moments, Mrs. Thunder reappeared and said, "Principal Shoyo is waiting for you in there," gesturing to an open door at the back.
Mrs. Shoyo was surprisingly young, Joe thought. She was dressed in a white blouse and business suit and wore a gold medicine-wheel pendant. She stood as Joe entered and they shook hands. Mrs. Shoyo had black hair that was swept back and piercing brown eyes. She was Native. He noted the pin on her lapel, a horizontal piece with a red wild rose on one side and a flag with parallel red and black bars on a field of white on the other side. The pin represented the two nations on the reservation: the rose the symbol of the Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho flag.
"Joe Pickett," he said. "Thanks for taking a few minutes."
"My pleasure," she said, sitting back down.
He glanced at the wall behind her where she displayed photos of her family: three beautiful dark-haired, dark-eyed girls, a shot of her husband, he assumed, on a knee next to a dead bull elk he was very proud of; her diploma from the University of Wyoming; a certificate naming her one of the "Top 100 American Indian Women Leaders of 2001."
"Mrs. Thunder said you were asking about one of my teachers, Alisha Whiteplume."
"Yes," Joe said.
"What about her?" Shoyo asked, her eyebrows arching, "Did she commit some kind of game violation?"
Joe laughed. "Not at all. I wish I weren't wearing this uniform shirt right now. No, I'm here because she was last seen in the presence of a friend of mine I'm trying to track down. I was hoping she could help me find him."
Mrs. Shoyo narrowed her eyes as if to read him better.
"I hope that's all this is about because Alisha is one of my best, if not the best teacher I've got here. She left the reservation after graduating from here and went off and made a success of herself. Then she chose to come back, to help her people. She's such a role model because she's bright and attractive and her students always do the best on the aptitude tests. She's also one of my closest friends."
Joe now knew why Mrs. Thunder had flinched.
"Then you know of Nate Romanowski," Joe said.
Mrs. Shoyo smiled gently, but Joe could see that she had placed an invisible shield between them. "Everybody knows Mr. Romanowski," she said, which somewhat surprised Joe. "But my understanding is he's in Cheyenne in jail waiting for his trial."
"He's out," Joe said. "He's supposed to be in my custody."
"But he isn't," she said.
"But he isn't," he sighed.
"Are you saying you think Alisha is with him, wherever he is?"
"Possibly."
"And by finding her you might find him."
"That's the idea," he said.
She raised her hand and fit her chin into her fist, studying him across the desk, making a determination, he assumed, about how much she should tell him and what she should keep to herself.
"Is Alisha in trouble?" she asked.
"No."
"Why should I believe you?"
Joe shrugged. "Because I'm telling you the truth. I just want to find Nate."
Mrs. Shoyo nodded as if she'd come to a conclusion. She leaned forward on her desk and showed him her palms. "I'd like to know where Alisha is as well because I'm starting to worry about her. She called in yesterday morning so we could line up a substitute teacher. I didn't talk with her, Mrs. Thunder did. Alisha told her she might be out for a few days so to try and get a good replacement. I don't think we did, though. I think we hired a man who spends all his time telling the students how hip and sympathetic he is to them instead of teaching them math and science."
Joe recalled the man in Alisha Whiteplume's classroom: it fit.
Joe asked, "Did she say where she was calling from?"
"No, she didn't," Mrs. Thunder answered from just outside the doorway, where she'd been listening.
"You can come in, Alice," Mrs. Shoyo said, doing a quick eye roll for Joe's benefit. "Nothing goes on in this school that Alice isn't aware of."